It is my strongly held belief that Thomas Sowell’s ideas contributes to racism and props up a racist status quo. I don’t use racist as an insult or to describe personal feelings of prejudice or personal acts of bigotry. It’s just a description of complicity in the perpetuation of race-based inequities that privilege some people and disadvantage others.
Pickering said he heard other elders express that they felt the task force had “Marxist” and “woke” tendencies, and possibly was driven by Critical Race Theory—a controversial academic movement seeking to explain issues of race and justice.
Kwon and Thompson’s response to DeYoung felt Marxist as well… it’s not like this isn’t a thing.
As for Sowell, he is factually right that not every form of racial inequality is caused by racial injustice… and another truth is that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to create a movement based on nuanced injustice
Just skimmed this thread. I’m not seeing much here related to New Calvinism. I don’t believe Doug Wilson and his federal vision stuff has anything to do with “New Calvinism”, and certainly not J. I. Packer with either, dear man.
There seems to be a real lack of clarity here regarding which sect who belongs to, unless “New Calvinism” has become the dumpster in which to thrown every brand of theologically-conservative, contemporary U.S. Christianity on the calvinistic spectrum.
Like mine.
Good point. Only thing I know about New Calvinists is they have beards and drink craft beer.
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In the early 2000s it was called the young restless and reformed movement. The Gospel Coalition came out of it, and other movements like the Acts 29 and Nine Marks church planting organizations developed out of it. Piper’s Desiring God and Passion Conferences were kind of at the center of it. Piper invited Wilson to some of the Desiring God conferences and they did teaching podcasts together. Piper’s seminary hired Joe Rigney as president in 2020. Rigney was mentored by Doug Wilson. Joe Rigney resigned/was fired at the end of last school year because his ties to Christian nationalism and Doug Wilson’s kookier stuff got to be too much. So he went to teach at Wilson’s New Saint Andrew’s College. Wilson’s homeshooling stuff and promotion of classical schooling has been hugely influential in these Baptist and PCA New Calvinist circles.
Not in my Baptist and PCA churches.
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PCA New Calvinist circles 
they subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith afterall… or does New Calvinist now stand for racists who hate women
Or let’s talk about recent Calvinists who do not hold a strong view for YECism.
I’d put Sproul and Packer at the top of the list
Oh rats, Tim Challies is personally a strong YECist
Keller wasn’t and I’d put him up there with Sproul and Packer
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Yeah, it was only a small contingent of my Baptist church that was reading and following these guys until pretty recently.
Sproul, Packer, and Keller have died. They aren’t really steering this ship.
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But again, I’m not talking about historically Reformed denominations or theologians or just anyone who subscribes to TULIP, I’m talking about a specific cultural movement within Evagelicalism that has been called New Calvinism and is more than just theological. It’s a brand. It’s a business. Review: ‘Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism’ by Brad Vermurlen
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I think your view of radical reformation is a bit limited. During earlier centuries, there has been a wide-spread tendency to seek and follow persons that have gained trust and positive fame. Yet, among the ‘radical’ wing of reformation, Pope-like leaders are very rare. There are leaders with a strong and influential position but some basic beliefs or interpretations among the ‘radical’ wing of the reformation work against Pope-like leadership.
One key interpretation is the emphasis on the general priesthood of all believers. When all are considered equally valuable before the Lord, it hinders the rise of Pope-like leaders. There is a need for leaders that could be called ‘leading pastors’, ‘church heads’, etc. but they rarely reach a position where they are as unaccountable as the Pope. Mostly, the leaders need to have and keep the trust of church members and when that trust is lost, the leader is replaced by someone else.
Another interpretation hindering the rise of Pope-like heads is the principle of having several ‘elders’ as the leading ‘board’ of a congregation. In some cases, the leading pastor is also the head of elders, which diminishes the influence of the other elders but very rarely to the point where the leading person becomes a Pope-like character. The leadership of the congregations resembles the earliest phase of Christianity before the time when single persons (bishops) were lifted as the heads of local ‘ecclesia’. Pope-like leadership followed much after that. As far as I remember, Pope-like leadership started to develop after Constantine transferred the administration of Rome to Constantinople, leaving a vacuum of leadership in Rome. The local bishop took the leadership when there was a need and managed to build the influence of the bishop of Rome to something above the other (western) bishops.
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Keller was extremely influential as an evolutionary New Calvinist and set a high bar for the next generation. As did Packer. I should dig up his closing words, a blessing for the next generation. It’s from Ryken’s biography.
Here’s Keller for Biologos
John Piper and Wayne Grudem are both open to an old earth view
Grudem would be an important person to look at for understanding another key element with the New Calvinism, which was how it brought together reformed doctrine and charismatic theology
And then there is the Apostle Paul, dead and without equal among the monergists, misogynists, charismatics, and slavery apologists… it would be something to hear what he had to say today about the age of the Earth
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and hi @St.Roymond . Yes, as direct descendant of the “radical” branch of the reformation myself, i.e. Mennonite, the form of church structure described above (board of elders, pastors etc.) fits well with how we organize ourselves. No single person is given infallible authority for interpreting scripture so I don’t think comparing our leaders to “many popes” is really valid—in fact, we practice the “community hermeneutic” of scripture interpretation which means that, as a gathering of believers under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we believe that all together we can carefully discern how the text is meant to speak to us in the current time. This is nothing like “every individual in private with his own bible going rogue and deciding infallible doctrines to follow for all time”.
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There should be healthy overlap and spheres of fallible authority between family, church and state.
As someone who strongly believes in hierarchy in these realms, I am also a strong relativist in how the various roles can function. For instance, when one party rejects the authority of another party within a particular area, what is the proper response? Far more often than nought, the proper response is to suffer the offense and to give the situation to God.
Not sure what you meant, but I strongly believe (viz separation of church and state), that the state has no authority at all in spiritual matters. Within the community of believers (which in my tradition of adult baptism is completely separate from the question of secular citizenship), believers (guided by the Holy Spirit) come to a talked-through-consensus about questions of faith which are not considered dogma (e.g. all hold to the Nicean Creed as core dogma), but beyond that, there may be freedom within our congregation for members to disagree on what we consider to be non-essential doctrinal differences…if no consensus can be reached.
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There is some overlap though, like the way in which a spiritual matter can conflict with civic noise ordinances. It’s when the rules are not black and white that we need the wisdom of God. And I do hope that our law makers and judges would be people who possess spiritual Solomon-like wisdom.
However, I don’t think any reasonable person, Calvinists especially, can disagree that reasonable people are going to disagree about the Bible.
So that puts us in the position of having to learn to get along with one another.
Not sure how a spiritual matter can conflict with noise ordinances? But sure…aside from those rare cases where a civic order directly conflicts with one’s faith convictions (e.g. to bow down and worship Caesar or to be conscripted in the military to kill someone) I expect most Christians would obey civic laws. But that isn’t a case of the State explicitly making laws for “faith-based groups”, which is what I was discussing.
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